Jack Jefford saw his first plane in 1916 at the age of six and he was hooked. By 1937 he was flying planes in Nome, Alaska and in three short years he became the Chief Pilot of the FAA.  He daily faced the dangers of Alaska’s skies, helped settle a frontier, and managed to survive long enough to share a lifetime of stories—delivering mail by plane, hunting coyotes, counting reindeer, transporting prisoners and congressmen, and rescuing the lost and injured, often at great risk to himself.

 

"In his classic memoir, "Winging It!," Jefford chronicles decades spent flying tens of thousands of hours in one of the most straightforward histories of Alaska aviation. . . In recently rereading "Winging It!" I was struck by how quietly significant Jefford's career was. He bridged the gap from the days of open cockpits and strapping dead bodies onto wings to the era of big powerful piston-engined aircraft roaring onto paved and lighted modern airfields. His memoir does more than bring readers back to an earlier time, it reveals how those times changed and gives readers a look into a unique aviation career that was transformative in every sense of the word." -Colleen Mondor, Alaska Dispatch News